The creative and poetic mind of FSU English major Katie Kelsey

By Bella Bozied

Katie Kelsey may be a second-year Florida State University student now, but to her mother, she is still the little girl playing with french fries from the bottom of the bag.

“My mom loves to remind me of when I was in the back of her little minivan and I had two fries that I was playing with: I was creating a whole story in my head,” Kelsey says.

Growing up, a challenge of Kelsey’s was realizing her creativity was a gift, not a drawback.

“I had to kind of understand how to use that creativity I had and almost channel it into helping me,” she says.

She has allowed her vivid imagination to run wild ever since.

Born in Noblesville, Indiana, and growing up in Jacksonville, Florida, Kelsey created a life for herself that revolved around her childhood dream of writing. She is currently majoring in English-Creative Writing and minoring in film studies, but her appreciation for the art of writing began in elementary school.

The question as to what Kelsey wanted to be when she grew up was always filled out in big crayon letters spelling out: AUTHOR.

“I really wanted to do books: all of the fiction writing,” Kelsey says.

In high school, this idea evolved and matured just like Kelsey herself did. Her involvement in English courses fueled her passion for literature and led to two of her poems being published in two separate places.

In the fall of 2017, her high school editing publication presented her poem, “Is.”

“It's a very simple title and, looking back, I have grown so much and really want to revise [it] someday,” Kelsey says.

While highlighting how different the poem is from who she is as a writer and a person today, she further acknowledges how proud she is to have “Is” be her first published piece. Her second poem, "Valley of Time," was printed in January 2021 in a Betty Griffin House calendar for the month of May. The house, located in St. Augustine, Florida, serves as a shelter that provides safety and healing services for victims impacted by harmful situations.

Kelsey explains that “the poem itself is about laying in a field of flowers and knowing that it is the same and it's always been like that, but it also will be changing. And it's a very calm poem.”

Writing was the one constant in my life, and whatever I wanted to do, it always ended up coming back to [that]. So, I think creative writing just kind of naturally suited me.

— Katie Kelsey

While her writing style had gravitated toward poetry, she also began writing screenplays. Her writing exposed everything from everyday life through a high school point of view, to the harsh realities within a dystopian setting. Kelsey allows her creativity to expand further than before with these pieces, as she takes the ideas hinted at within her poetry and allows them to come to life on stage.

Through the evolution of her preferred genre and format choices, Kelsey finds comfort in the idea that her career dream is developing over time with this growth.

“Writing was the one constant in my life, and whatever I wanted to do, it always ended up coming back to [that],” she says. “So, I think creative writing just kind of naturally suited me.”

Once she entered college, it took no time for Kelsey to find the Poetry Club, an FSU student organization, which she discovered at her freshman-year Involvement Fair.

“There weren't a lot of places I could have a medium or outlet to use my love of poetry” she says. “Seeing that club there was such a relief. And after that first meeting, I really had fun, so I just kept showing up.”

Jenna Prunty, president of the Poetry Club for two years now, further highlights Kelsey’s abilities and the lasting impression she has left with the club.

“She is hardworking and…always checks with teammates before introducing new ideas and is very open minded,” Prunty says. “Katie is always there to lend a hand to those looking for poetry advice and she keeps everyone in the loop on poetry events and meetings for the club.”

After joining the organization in late August 2021, Kelsey took the initiative to become the club’s social media coordinator.

With her appreciation for poetry's ability to allow anyone a platform to express themselves, she worked to create an interactive Instagram account for the club’s community to grow.

“She has taken control of the advertising and promoting sector of the club,” Prunty says. “Katie did this without prompting and is a dedicated manager of our socials. She keeps the pages lively…and always jumps at any opportunity to improve our online presence. She has expanded our membership in an artistic and connected manner.”

Kelsey has taken her love for writing and applied it to other aspects of her career path as well, such as serving as a Public Affairs and Editorial Manager for the College of Social Sciences DeVoe L. Moore Center. Several of these centers are located on FSU’s campus, and they work to produce “interdisciplinary, market-oriented research to analyze, develop, and propose policy recommendations,” on the local and state level, as outlined on the center’s website.

As of the summer of 2022, Kelsey has worked her way up to manager for the center, overseeing the internship process that she recently went through. Additionally, she explains, she uses various multi-modal platforms to maintain the center’s social media accounts and to communicate its propositions.

Most importantly, as a part of the editorial team, she looks at every piece of media and asks, “Does this make sense to somebody who's not in the College of Social Sciences?”

These complementary perspectives that Kelsey brings together assist her throughout her various involvements with her job, the Poetry Club, and her everyday writing experiences.

“It's just something that's kind of fulfilling that childhood dream of wanting to be an author, but also being able to do my now dream of doing something editorial and doing something with copywriting,” Kelsey says.

After graduation from FSU, Kelsey plans to take on numerous writing objectives. She wants to work within an editorial team as well as publish a novel and a collection of poems.

With the success of her writing involvements as an English major and with her personal publications, Kelsey believes she has set herself up to continue doing what she loves most: writing.

Bella Bozied is a double major in English-Editing, Writing, and Media as well as Information, Communication, and Technology.

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